


A brief discussion on the art of wearing purple

by Amemait



Category: Watchmen - All Media Types
Genre: GFY, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-10
Updated: 2013-07-10
Packaged: 2017-12-18 08:49:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/877921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amemait/pseuds/Amemait
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A short fic about Adrian and his thing for Purple, written for GlassPyramids on her Birthday in 2009.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A brief discussion on the art of wearing purple

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GlassPyramids](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=GlassPyramids).



Purple was a perfectly admirable colour. In days long gone, it symbolised royalty, riches; a bright colour bought at the cost of thousands, millions of tiny deaths and a bad smell.

The colour of senators and of emperors, but also (and here Adrian was loath to admit it even to himself) the colour of childhood. Of innocence. Of a youth spent learning or of a youth spent working, it made no difference; a toga praetexta was worn by all young boys, freeborn or freedmen. And while the clothing was mostly white, there was still that border of purple, even if the thread in it had been worn to obscurity.

It meant potential.

Every one of us, it suggested, every one of us has the potential to become great. No matter what station we start off in life with. For was not Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, the simple farmer, also a great leader of Rome when he was called upon?

There may have been an innocence to those times, despite the arenas. The elite ruled the now, and the days of just anybody being chosen to lead were long gone.

And if the world would not choose one person, perhaps it might learn to accept the choices that one person could make.

**Author's Note:**

> Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus wasn't JUST a simple farmer. He had enough of a known political history that he was a good choice to become Impiratur. And he did save Rome.


End file.
